Grow Your Own Fresh Fruit!
The ‘Loganberry’ is the favorite for home gardens. It bears large, deep wine-red berries that are a cross between a blackberry and a red raspberry. Loganberries ripen in July and are strong & vigorous growers. Berries should be allowed to darken to a deep wine-red to purple color before picking to obtain the best-flavored fruit. The loganberry is slightly longer than a raspberry with a juicier and sharper flavor. Loganberries are undemanding and easy to grow, and continue to fruit for many years. The rich, fresh tasting flavor of the loganberry will leave you wanting for more. This is a vigorous, trailing plant that is a favorite for making syrup, preserves and desserts. Loganberries have a distinct and moderately tart flavor, small seed and like the red raspberry, contain a hollow core.
Raised from seed by James Harvey Logan, a lawyer and amateur horticulturist, the plant is thought to be a hybrid between the wild blackberry (Rubus ursinus) of the Pacific coast and the red raspberry (Rubus idaeus), a cosmopolitan species. It is grown in large quantities in Oregon and Washington and is also cultivated in England and Australia, among other places. The fruit is canned, frozen for preserve or pie stock, or made into wine.
The loganberry is a vigorous, nearly trailing plant with compound leaves of three to five leaflets and prickly canes. Its deep wine-red, tart, high-flavored fruit is technically an aggregate of druplets and is hollow like a blackberry. The plants are hardy and fairly resistent to disease and frost. Hybrids without prickles have been developed.